Keith Johnson
For the United States—a country that, especially under incoming President-elect Donald Trump, aspires to be not only energy secure but energy dominant—one energy insecurity problem remains, which could dog the development of a key source of new power.
Some five months after the United States swore off imports of Russian enriched uranium, a key source of fuel for the nuclear reactors that provide almost 20 percent of the country's electricity, U.S. reliance on imports, including from Russia, remains an issue. At stake is less the fuel supply for the current fleet of nuclear reactors than the fuel for the coming generation of advanced nuclear plants that are meant to provide all the extra power needed to run data centers and power artificial intelligence; Russia has a complete monopoly on the commercial production of that richer blend of fuel. (Tech companies are so eager to line up new sources of power that Microsoft is re-commissioning part of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and will buy all of its output.)
No comments:
Post a Comment